West Brighton native and Wagner College graduate Kathy Brier starred in the Broadway production of “Hairspray” from Aug. 2003 to May 2004. She also had a regular role on “One Life to Live” and recorded and self-released a CD, “HeartBreaker,” in 2006.

TV actor Eric Close was born in Fort Wadsworth and grew up in San Diego. Among other roles, he portrayed FBI Agent Martin Fitzgerald on “Without a Trace” from 2002 to 2009.

Joey Faye, a comedian whose career spanned 65 years from burlesque to Broadway, movies and TV, and who played second banana to comic greats like Phil Silvers and Gypsy Rose Lee, once lived in Great Kills.

Mariners Harbor native Carmine Giovinazzo played baseball at both Port Richmond High School and Wagner College. In addition to roles in movies like “Black Hawk Down” and “In Enemy Hands,” he plays Det. Danny Messer on the TV show “CSI: New York.”

Allen Jenkins, an actor who appeared in more than 200 films and was the voice of Officer Dibble in the TV cartoon series “Top Cat,” was born in Mariners Harbor and graduated from Port Richmond High School.

Robert Loggia, who was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for his work in “Jagged Edge” (1986), graduated from New Dorp High School and played football at Wagner College.

Alyssa Milano, who has starred in TV’s “Who’s the Boss,” “Melrose Place” and “Charmed,” lived a few blocks from Ricky Schroder in Great Kills as a kid.

Paul Newman, Academy Award-winner, lived at 30 Daniel Low Terr. in St. George as a struggling actor.

Mabel Normand was a famous silent screen star and comedienne who made 11 short films with Charlie Chaplin. She is credited with originating the classic cream-pie-in-the-face routine. Born in New Brighton (some accounts say Stapleton) in 1885, she once was linked romantically to actor Mack Sennett, who gave her a $2 engagement ring on the Staten Island Ferry. They never married.

Rick Schroder, of “NYPD Blue” and “Lonesome Dove” television fame, became an instant star for his tear-jerking childhood role opposite Jon Voight in the 1979 film, “The Champ.” Born on Staten Island, he spent his childhood and early career – he was Ricky then – living on Leverett Avenue in Great Kills.

Steven Seagal — star of “Marked for Death,” “Under Siege” and other action thrillers — and his wife, actress/model Kelly LeBrock — of “Weird Science,” “Woman in Red” and “Wrongfully Accused” — lived in Eltingville in the early 1990s near the home of Julius Nasso, a producer of Seagal’s films.

Brendon Sexton III, star of "Welcome to the Doll House" and "Hurricane Streets," grew up in St. George. He’s the son of a former city sanitation commissioner and has recently appeared on AMC’s crime drama "The Killing."

Martin Sheen lived in the same St. George building as Paul Newman – but years later, between 1962 and 1964, while waiting for his big break. His first child, actor-writer Emilio Estevez, was born on the living room floor.

Chris Terrio, who grew up in Midland Beach and graduated from St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School, won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay earlier this year for his work on “Argo,” which also captured the Oscar for Best Picture. At one time, he worked as a teen correspondent for the Advance.

Former New Springville resident Peter Sollett a one-time Advance intern, was the writer, director and producer of the critically acclaimed "Raising Nick Vargas" in 2002. He also directed "Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist" in 2009.

View full sizePaul SchiraldiTristan Wilds, Former star on HBO series "The Wire," currently on 90210.

Tristan Wilds, a longtime resident of the Stapleton Houses and graduate of the Petrides School, played the character Michael Lee on HBO’s drug-scene drama "The Wire." He has also appeared on "90210" since 2008.

Aaron Burr, third vice president of the United States under president Thomas Jefferson, who later killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, died in Port Richmond.

Robert Gould Shaw was the commander of the first all-black regiment to fight for the Union during the Civil War. His father,

Francis George Shaw, was the founder of the Republican Party here and a founder of the Staten Island Savings Bank. The family lived in Livingston, and both of his parents encouraged Shaw the younger – the featured protagonist of the 1989 movie "Glory" – to join the fight. He died in battle in 1863.

Daniel D. Tompkins, vice president of the United States under President James Monroe, lived in St. George and died on Staten Island in 1825. Tompkinsville is named in his honor; Monroe Avenue in that community is named for the former president.

Julia Gardiner Tyler, President John Tyler’s second wife, moved to West Brighton after the former president’s death.

MUSIC

Christina Aguilera was born in Staten Island University Hospital on Dec. 18, 1980. She spent the first few years of her life on Rockwell Avenue in Grasmere, and moved to Wexford, Pa., when her parents got divorced.

Folk-music icon Joan Baez was born in Staten Island Hospital in 1941. At the time, her father (see Albert V. Baez) was a mathematics professor at Wagner College and the family lived in Westerleigh. When Joan turned 2, her father accepted a teaching job at Stanford University in California, moving the family west.

Budos Band, Staten Island’s own Afro-funk, 10-piece band, tours Europe and the West Coast when members get breaks from teaching in the city’s public schools. The group is part of the renowned soul revival label Daptone Records, based in Brooklyn. Several of the guys have also played on records by Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.

Roy Clark (born 1933), country music legend and star of TV’s “Hee-Haw,” grew up in Great Kills.

The patriotic composer George M. Cohan (1878-1972) lived in the Actors Home in West Brighton. His tunes included “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “Yankee Doodle Boy.”

Rock ‘n’ roll teen idol Bobby Darin (then Bobby Cassotto) came from the Bronx to spend his summers in South Beach, where his family rented a bungalow during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Eileen Farrell, the operatic diva who debuted with the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1960, once lived on Emerson and Grymes hills.

David Johansen, former punk rock leader of the New York Dolls, who also had an incarnation as lounge lizard extraordinaire Buster Poindexter, was born in West Brighton in 1950.

Jenny Lind (1820-87), the world-renowned Swedish soprano who was admired equally for her skilled coloratura (singing ornately embellished music) in opera and oratorio and her appealing style in simple songs, frequently sang at the Pavilion Hotel in West Brighton during the two years she lived in the community.

Max Maretzek, conductor of the Italian Opera Company in New York, who devoted his life to producing opera at popular prices, lived in Pleasant Plains for 40 years, until his death in 1897.

Grammy and Tony Award-winning composer Galt MacDermot (born 1928), who wrote the music for the much celebrated Broadway show “Hair,” lives in Silver Lake. “Hair” played all over the world, was made into a film and was successfully revived several times. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009.

Ingrid Michaelson, a singer and songwriter, has most recently been seen in a Tropicana commercial. She’s released five studio albums since 2005, and her music has been featured in shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Bones” and “The Vampire Diaries.” In 2009, her second album debuted in the iTunes Top 10 — without a major label deal. A Stapleton native, she’s a graduate of Staten Island Technical HS.

Wu-Tang Clan, an award-winning, hip-hop rap group whose recordings have sold millions, hail from the Park Hill section of Clifton. Despite their often-chronicled bad behavior, the group has inspired a generation of local rappers. Some of the original members have had solo careers.

LITERATURE

Staten Island can claim a connection to the following authors, among others

Paul Bowles (1910-1999) was a novelist, poet and musical composer perhaps best known for his book “The Sheltering Sky,” released as a feature film in 1990 starring John Malkovich and Debra Winger, which Bowles narrated.

Brought to the West New Brighton as a young boy and educated at Staten Island Academy, James Gould Cozzens won a Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel “Guard of Honor” (1949), about World War II.

Abolitionist George William Curtis, an essayist, novelist and editorial writer for the New York Tribune, Putnam’s Monthly and Harpers Weekly, lived in what is now Livingston from 1856 to 1892. Curtis High School is named for him.

Judge William Emerson was the brother of essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who often visited. The judge brought author/naturalist Henry David Thoreau to his Concord home, on Richmond Road near Clove Road, to tutor his children in 1843-1844. Thoreau, of course, was the author of “Walden.” Emerson Hill is named for the brothers.

Poet Langston Hughes spent the summer of 1922 working on the Criaris farm in New Springville. He wrote in “The Big Sea” (1940): “The farm belonged to some Greeks (two brothers and their wives), who didn’t care what nationality you were just so you got up at five in the morning and worked all day until it was too dark to see the rows in the field. ... There was something about such work that made you feel useful and important – sending off onions that you had planted and seen grow from a mere speck of green, that you tended and weeded, had pulled up and washed and even loaded on the wagon – seeing them go off to feed the great city of New York.”

Washington Irving, author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” spent time on the Island during the War of 1812, when he served as aide-de-camp to Gov. Daniel Tompkins.

Edwin Markham (1852-1940), a poet (“The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems” among other titles) who herded cattle and sheep on a California ranch in his youth and later became a school principal, lived in Westerleigh for 38 years, until his death.

Award-winning author Frank McCourt never actually lived here, but taught English at McKee High School for eight years. He lived in Brooklyn and commuted to the Island by ferry and bike. The school’s 1966 yearbook refers to him as the “Bicycle Hero.” His book “Angela’s Ashes” earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1997; it was made into a film in 2000. McCourt died in 2009 at the age of 78.

Herman Melville, who wrote “Moby Dick,” often stayed with his brother, Thomas Melville, during the years 1867-1884, when Thomas was a governor at Sailors Snug Harbor.

Dr. Oliver Sacks, author of “Awaken-ings,” which was adapted for the big screen in 1990 and starred Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro, used to work at Willowbrook State School and many of the case studies featured in the novel are experiences from the school.

Born on the Island, science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon is perhaps best known for “More Than Human” (1953). He also wrote the Star Trek teleplays for the episodes titled “Shore Leave” and “Amok Time.”

William Winter (d. 1917), a drama critic for the New York Tribune and an essayist and poet who contributed to Vanity Fair and Saturday Press, once lived in New Brighton. Winter was known for his “famous” friendships with poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author Charles Dickens and others.

Born in Stapleton, author Paul Zindel grew up in Travis. He attended PS 26 and went to Port Richmond HS and Wagner College, where he graduated with a degree in chemistry. He taught at Tottenville HS for 10 years in the 1960s, during which time he wrote “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” (1962). In 1971, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the play and in 1973 Twentieth Century Fox turned it into a movie with Paul Newman directing wife Joanne Woodward. He died in 2003 at the age of 66.

BUSINESS

Thomas Adams, founder of the chewing gum industry, teamed up with William Wrigley Jr. and developed the popular gum called Chiclets. Adams lived in West Brighton in the 1860s and 1870s.

John Eberhardt Faber brought the pencil business to America after the Revolution of 1848 and lived in Port Richmond. Faber Pool in Port Richmond is named for the family.

Charles Goodyear lived in West Brighton in the 1830s, where he operated a factory that produced rubber toys, maps and surgical bandages. He invented the process that prevents India rubber from melting in summer heat, and made rubber a practical product for many uses.

Balthasar Kreischer, born in Germany, established a brick plant in what is today Charleston. The New York Fire-Brick and Staten Island Clay Retort Works turned out some 20,000 fire-bricks a day during the late 1800s. Other items made at the plant included roofing tiles, gas retorts, ornamental mouldings, garden urns and figures. Kreischer purchased land and built houses for his employees, so they could live near their job; the community was called Kreischerville. One of the huge Victorian mansions he had constructed for his sons still stands on Arthur Kill Road.

Cornelius Vanderbilt borrowed $100 from his parents and bought a sailboat that he used to ferry people to Manhattan from our Island. Soon, the Port Richmond resident had steamships circling the globe and railroads crossing the continent, making him the richest man in the world.

William Henry Vanderbilt was given a farm in New Dorp by his father, Cornelius (who thought his son had no talent for business). He prospered and entered the railroad business by rescuing the insolvent Staten Island Railway. He went on to double the family fortune. Among other things, Erastus Wiman helped make St. George a central transportation hub, opened the Staten Island Amusement Company, a three-story amusement arena that held more than 5,000 people and bought the original Metropolitan Baseball Club (the Mets), a professional team that played on a field next to the arena. He was among those who brought electricity to the Island and served as president of the Staten Island Telephone Exchange Co., the Staten Island Railway Co. and was director of the Western Union Telegraph Co. He lived mostly on the North Shore, but had a country home in Eltingville, which he dubbed Woods of Arden. Wiman died in relative poverty and obscurity after being convicted of forgery in 1895.

Charles R. Witteman founded the world’s first airplane manufacturing plant in his father’s garage right on Todt Hill. He was also the founder of Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

HISTORY

Aaron Burr, third vice president of the United States under president Thomas Jefferson, who later killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, died in Port Richmond.

Born in Mariners Harbor, Father Vincent Capodanno was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps during the Vietnam war. He was killed during fighting in 1967, while comforting and attending the wounded, administering last rites to the dying. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Father Capodanno Boulevard, along the Island’s East Shore, is named for him. Capodanno’s brother, James, still lives in Eltingville.

A colonel in the U.S. Army, Ichabod Crane met author Washington Irving while serving in the War of 1812. Crane was the inspiration for the name of the scrawny schoolteacher who meets the headless horseman in Irving’s story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1819). The home Crane had built in the 1850s, on what is now Victory Boulevard, was demolished in the 1990s.

Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi, a key figure in the unification of Italy, supported himself as a candlemaker while he lived in exile with the inventor Antonio Meucci in Rosebank. Their former home is now the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum.

New Brighton native Joseph F. Merrell Jr. was post-humously awarded the Medal of Honor for his combat actions in 1945, during World War II. A private in the U.S. Army, Merrell’s unit was in Germany, under attack. He ran over 200 yards through heavy enemy fire, defeated two German machine gun positions and killed 23 enemy soldiers before being fatally shot.

Robert Gould Shaw was the commander of the first all-black regiment to fight for the Union during the Civil War. His father, Francis George Shaw, was the founder of the Republican Party and the Unitarian Church on Staten Island. The senior Shaw was also a founder of the Staten Island Savings Bank. The family lived in Livingston, and both of his parents encouraged Shaw the younger — the protagonist of the 1989 movie “Glory” — to join the fight. He died in battle in 1863.

Daniel D. Tompkins, vice president of the United States under President James Monroe, lived in St. George and died on Staten Island in 1825. Tompkinsville is named in his honor; Monroe Avenue in that community is named for the former president.

Grant City resident and Staten Island Academy alum Dr. Oscar Auerbach (1905-1997) was a pathologist who established the link between smoking and lung cancer. His research is the basis for the U.S. Surgeon General’s warning which appears on all cigarette packs. Auerbach worked at Sea View Hospital and Home, the former Halloran Memorial Hospital in Willowbrook, and the former Richmond Memorial Hospital, among other locations.

One of the country’s most prominent woman photo-graphers, Alice Austen amassed a collection of nearly 8,000 images between 1884 and 1934, but she remained relatively unknown until an article in Life magazine in 1951. Since her death the following year at the age 87, her life story has been the subject of books, magazine articles and film documentaries. Her home, Clear Comfort in Rosebank, is now known as the Alice Austen House. A museum, it is a city landmark and open to the public.

Albert V. Baez is credited with the invention of the X-ray microscope used today in studying DNA and the AIDS virus. Born in Mexico, he lived in Westerleigh while teaching mathematics at Wagner College. He is the father of folksingers Joan Baez and Mimi (Baez) Farina.

John Merven Carrere was an architect with the renowned firm of Carrere and Hastings, designers of the United States Senate and House office buildings, Staten Island Borough Hall, the New York Public Library building on Fifth Avenue and branch libraries in St. George, Stapleton, Tottenville and Port Richmond, as well as the first ferry terminal and the Supreme Court in St. George. The firm was also known for hotels, churches and theaters up and down the East Coast, and posh estates from Newport to Palm Beach. He lived on Staten Island during his heyday and is buried in Moravian Cemetery, New Dorp.

Patti Hansen, the supermodel who married Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, hailed from Tottenville and frequently returned to the Island with her rocker hubby to visit family.

Tutor to the 67 children of the King of Siam, Anna Harriet Leonowens’ story was told in the Margaret Landon book “Anna and The King” (1944), which was later made into a musical and a movie. She moved to the Island in 1867, ran a school on Richmond Terrace in West New Brighton and wrote several books of her own.

Antonio Meucci, perhaps the real inventor of the telephone, lived the final years of his life in Rosebank, in a home that is now the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum.

Pat Robertson, host of the “700 Club” and founder of the CBN cable network, lived for two years during the 1950s in Dongan Hills, where he headed a failed Adlai Stevenson-for-President effort.

Randy “Macho Man” Savage, a professional wrestler and former champ, once lived in New Springville and often worked out in local gyms.

SPORTS

Famous faces in sports, Staten Island can claim a connection to the following pro athletes, among others:

BASEBALL: Former McKee HS star Gloria Cordes-Elliott joined the Professional Women’s Baseball League in 1950. During her five-year career, she was an All-Star three times; she was also the winning pitcher in the league’s first All-Star game. Her exploits were the inspiration for the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.”

New York Mets closer and former Todt Hill resident John Franco was a four-time All-Star selection (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990) during more than 20 years in baseball. A member of the Mets from 1990 to 2004, he was captain 2001-2004. Born in Brooklyn, the lefty pitcher played 1,119 career games with an ERA of 2.89 and had 424 career saves.

View full sizeAssociated PressJohn Franco, at the age 44 and a veteran of 21 big-league seasons, became the all-time, left-handed saves leader.

Pitcher Jason Marquis was a member of the National League All-Star Team in 2009 while playing for the Colorado Rockies. A Prince’s Bay resident, he pitched the South Shore Little League to a World Series berth as a youngster, before helping lead the Tottenville HS Pirates to two straight PSAL crowns. He’s now with the Minnesota Twins.

Bobby Thomson is best known for “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” a homer over the left-field fence in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 3 of the 1951 National League Championship at the Polo Grounds. The blast climaxed the New York Giants’ seemingly impossible drive to take the pennant from the Brooklyn Dodgers. Born in Scotland and brought to Staten Island at the age of 2, Thomson was on the squad at Curtis HS. He played 15 Major League seasons and made three National League All-Star teams.

FOOTBALL: Joe Andruzzi won Super Bowl rings with the New England Patriots in 2002, 2004 and 2005. The 6-foot, 3-inch, 310-pound offensive guard was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphona in 2007, but was in remission by the following year. Raised in Huguenot, he was a member of the Tottenville HS squad.

Defensive end Adewale Ogunleye, a Tottenville HS product and former Clifton resident, recorded an AFC-leading 15 sacks and was elected to the Pro Bowl in 2003, his third NFL season with the Miami Dolphins. At 6 foot, 4 inches and 260 pounds, he helped the Chicago Bears advance to the Super Bowl in 2007.

HOCKEY: South Beach native Nick Fotiu played professional hockey for 18 years. He was a member of five NHL clubs, including the Rangers’ team that reached the Stanley Cup finals in 1979. He started in Midland Beach roller hockey games and didn’t put on a pair of ice skates until 15.

SOCCER: John Wolyniec, an Annadale resident and graduate of Monsignor Farrell High School, retired in September 2010 after playing 12 seasons of Major League Soccer. A forward, he had 26 goals in 142 games during his seven years with the New York Red Bulls.

TENNIS: Mary Ewing Outerbridge set up the first tennis court in the U.S. on the grounds of the Staten Island Cricket and Baseball Club. She brought the game home after seeing it played on a trip to Bermuda in 1874. Mrs. Outerbridge was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1981.

TRACK: Curtis High School graduate Abel Kiviat (1892-1991) was a silver medalist in the 1,500 meters and a gold medal winner in the 3,000-meter relay at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. Once cited as the world’s oldest living Olympic winner, the track at Kiviat’s alma mater was named in his honor just months after he died.

RELIGION

Famous faces ... in the church The following devout people can claim a connection to our borough:

Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was an American journalist, social activist and resident of the former Spanish Camp, Annadale. She converted to Catholicism and was baptized at Our Lady Help of Christians R.C. Church, Tottenville, in 1927. In the 1930s, Miss Day co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement, a non-violent effort that continues to combine aid for the poor and homeless with action on their behalf. Pope John Paul II granted the Archdiocese of New York permission to open her “cause” for sainthood in March 2000, thereby officially making her a “Servant of God” in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Her grave is in Resurrection Cemetery, Pleasant Plains.

Father John Christopher Drumgoole, an Irish immigrant, founded Mount Loretto in Pleasant Plains, a mission for homeless children, in 1883. He died just five years later, but records indicate that more than 19,000 youngsters came under his care during his years of service in Manhattan and on Staten Island. His dedication to them was so deep that he reportedly turned down an invitation from Pope Leo XIII to join the pontiff for his golden jubilee in 1887.

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, the first person born in the United States to be canonized a saint in the Catholic Church (September 14, 1975), lived for a time on Staten Island as a child. Her maternal grandparents, Mary Bayeux and Dr. Richard Charlton, resided here when Dr. Charlton was pastor of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. She founded the American Sisters of Charity, the first sisterhood native to the U.S., in 1809. Bayley Seton Hospital is named for her.